Engaged in a Very Civil War (Federalist Society influence on us)

[rodeodance]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-federalists11nov11,0,5346752.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=morenews


THE NATION
Engaged in a Very Civil War
The Federalist Society has reshaped the legal system without ever going to court.

By David G. Savage
Times Staff Writer

November 11, 2005

WASHINGTON — It began in 1982 with a handful of law students at Yale and the University of Chicago who saw themselves as minorities. They were conservatives.

As a counter to liberal orthodoxy, they formed a legal debating group they called the Federalist Society. And in a hint of things to come, their first faculty advisor at the Chicago chapter was professor Antonin Scalia, soon to be the most influential conservative on the Supreme Court.

.....Sunstein, who clerked for the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, agreed that the conservative legal movement has won some battles, but not the war over how to interpret the Constitution.

"They have won the battle against 'liberal activism,' " he said. "But they have not won the debate over 'originalism.' The American public does not believe the Constitution should mean what it meant at the time it was ratified."

[rodeodance]

1. "originalism and unenumerated rights" and "originalism and precedent."

...This week, the Federalist Society reprinted both speeches as part of its program and used them as a backdrop for debates on topics such as "originalism and unenumerated rights" and "originalism and precedent."

Though they may be abstract, these topics describe the essence of the Senate's debate over Roberts' nomination and the upcoming debate over Alito. As conservatives, will they vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade because the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion was not based on the original intent of the Constitution, or will they uphold it because of its 32-year-old precedent?

Conservatives ruefully acknowledge that they have not won many converts to "originalism" on the Supreme Court. Two justices, Scalia and Clarence Thomas, describe themselves as originalists. They have rejected, for example, claims involving gay rights or challenges to the death penalty for mentally retarded defendants by saying such ideas would have violated the original understanding of the Constitution.

By contrast, a majority of justices said the death penalty for retarded defendants was cruel and unusual punishment by today's standards. Similarly, state laws that blatantly discriminate against gays, the majority said, violate "equal protection" as it is understood today.......

[bballny]

3. Executing

mentally retarded people should be a sign to all normal pople that these people are wacked.

[rosesaylavee]

6. I don't understand Clarence Thomas -

the original interpretation of the Constitution would dictate that he had no rights as a black man... It just doesn't make sense to me.

[mitchum]

7. Yep, Clarence would be only 3/5 of a dirtbag

[Angry Girl]

8. Love the "File Delete"!!!!! We need one for the Federalist Society...

Others on President Bush's reputed short list include Federalist Society members John Roberts and Michael McConnell, both appellate court justices. Still others on the list have addressed the group, including appellate Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson, Emilio Garza, Edith Hollan Jones and Samuel Alito, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

While the society has no formal role in consulting with the White House, "the reality is, given the presence of Federalist Society members within the White House counsel's office and the Bush administration, they are playing a crucial role in selecting judges and likely justices," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal Duke University law professor who has addressed the group.

<snip>

The Institute for Democracy Studies, which says it examines "anti-democratic religious and political movements and organizations," calls the society part of "the infrastructure underlying the right-wing assault on the democratic foundations of our legal system."

<snip>

"As we try to monitor the legal DNA of President Bush's nominees, we find repeatedly the Federalist Society chromosome," Durbin said at a 2003 hearing. "Why is it that membership in the Federalist Society has become the secret handshake of the Bush nominees for the federal court?"
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12158910.htm

[rosesaylavee]

9. Thanks for the info...

I have heard them mentioned a few times this fall and hadn't a clue on who they were until this week.

Yep, they need to go or at least, have less influence. Maybe a bright light on their affairs would do it?

[leetrisck]

2. The Courts have been controlled by Republicans

since the Reagan years so if they want to yell activist judges - guess who put them there.

[xchrom]

4. the federalist society = danger to civilized people everywhere.

[orpupilofnature57]

5. Arron Burr did his part, let's do Ours IMPEACHMENT!!!